AN: Once again, sorry for the delay. Starbrigid and I have both been very busy with projects and the holiday season, as I'm sure many of you are. The good news is that chapter eleven is completely typed and chapter twelve is most of the way there, so you shouldn't have to wait a month for them. wince
Thank you, reviewers! You are really great and surprisingly patient.
Chapter Ten
Waking to the faint sound of his alarm radio, Hideaki yawned and stretched his limbs. He was lying on the floor of his living room, near the TV. His little table had been pushed against the wall to make more room for the boys on the floor. He sighed, not surprised to see the bedding beside him neatly folded and left there in a precise stack. There was no note and no Arima. He wasn't really worried about the other boy, but a faint ache of disappointment tightened his throat.
The remainder of the day passed quickly in a blur of practice entrance exams and when he went to meet the gang for lunch, Arima wasn't there.
"He had something to do," Yukino said when Hideaki asked. She fingered the edge of her neat jacket where it covered the uniform tie, looking distracted and unhappy. He wondered what Arima had told her or what she had sensed in her secretive boyfriend.
Tsubaki tapped her fingers on the table and looked directly across at Yukino's face. "Well, I kept my mouth shut and didn't pester him, like you said," she told the other girl. "So, you talked to him, right? Who was she? I'm dying to know."
"Just a neighbor," Yukino said, mustering a weak smile. "Someone he's known a while who came to see him."
Hideaki winced inwardly at her distress but kept his face smooth and interested. Rika coughed awkwardly and Tsubaki raised a skeptical eyebrow. "…And you believe that?"
Listlessly, Yukino shrugged. "It doesn't matter. I trust him, I really do. I guess I just wish he would trust me too."
An uncomfortable silence filled the room. Tsubaki fumed, Aya frowned at her food, and Rika fingered her hair restlessly.
"So…" Tonami started, eyes darting nervously between the girls and Hideaki. "Uh, Asaba, did you by any chance tape the mystery theatre program that was on last night? Sakura really wants to see it."
Hideaki felt a wave of gratitude for the tall boy's clumsy attempt at normal conversation. He cocked his head. "Actually Takefumi, I stopped watching kids shows several years ago," he declared with false arrogance. "Maybe you should ask a middle schooler."
"It's not a kids show!" Tsubaki retorted, thumping her fist on the table. "It's a fast-paced, exciting thriller, you nitwit." She leaned forward to give him a look of calculated scorn. "Of course, probably all you ever watch is porn, so you wouldn't know."
"Sakura!" Tonami protested, blushing.
"Your jealousy is understandable," Hideaki concluded, folding his arms. "I'd be happy to loan you some porn, but I really don't think you're mature enough to see it."
Yukino's shoulders shook with laughter and Rika choked on a mouthful of orange juice.
"Asapin and Tsubaki watching porn together," Aya drawled. "That'll be the day."
Even Tonami had to snicker at that particular mental image.
-
The phone rang as Hideaki unlocked the door to his apartment. Jerking, the door open, he kicked off his shoes and skidded across the floor to where the cordless sat and plucked it out of its cradle.
It wasn't Arima. "I'm so sorry to bother you, Asaba," Arima's aunt said. "I was just wondering if my boy was there."
"No, not yet," Hideaki answered honestly, dropping his book bag on the table.
She said nothing for a moment. Then, "He stayed at your place last night to help you study, right?"
"Yes, he was here all night." Hideaki sensed the anxiety in her voice. He wanted to soothe her, help her, but his loyalties lay first with her adopted son. "In fact, I think he may come over again tonight to help me the test that's coming up."
"She made me promise to meet her again." Arima was out on another date with his birth mother and he obviously didn't want anyone to know.
"I'll look after him, Arima-san," Hideaki told her.
"Thank you," she breathed. "That makes me feel better. He's a good boy but he's had such a difficult time and I know that being friends with you has helped him open up. You're the kind of outgoing influence he needs."
If only you knew, Hideaki thought somewhat guiltily, what kind of influence I'd like to be. He offered the usual goodbye pleasantries and hung up the phone.
-
The next day was clear and crisp, heralding the start of a cold winter. Hideaki walked to school in a fog of thoughts. A leafblower had come by and scattered the leaves from the sidewalks, but ghostly imprints of their dark shapes still lingered on the light pavement. Arima hadn't called him last night or stopped by the apartment.
At school, he was somewhat alarmed to hear that Arima hadn't attended his first classes. Finally, after two periods, the model student arrived. Hideaki watched him assure a trio of students that he had simply overslept that morning.
Were you with her? Hideaki wondered. He could not form a solid image of the infamous mother in his mind. She must be very beautiful, he imagined, to have a son like Arima. He stepped into the mostly empty classroom where Arima sat, talking with some classmates. Arima's expression was open and calm as he listened to the other students prattle on about what he had missed in the early classes. A part of Hideaki admired Arima for the ease in which he wore the mask, slipping it on like a second skin. No traces showed of his fears or doubts, no hint of guilt at his lies.
He doesn't wear that mask with me, Hideaki thought with an odd sense of comfort. Then he saw Yukino in the doorway, watching Arima with an expression he had never seen before, lips parted, eyes narrow with concentration and disbelief. She sees it too, he realized, with a jolt of fear and amazement. She finally sees through it.
Hideaki stiffened as her head turned toward him and her gaze met his, incredulous and questioning. He swallowed hard, anxiety and shame clawing at his throat. He stood and went to the door. Arima's eyes were on his back, burning his skin.
When he stepped into the hall, he attempted a wide grin, but her cool, accusing eyes shot it down.
"I need to talk to you, Asaba," she said.
Hideaki made a show of scratching his head and checking his watch. "Can it wait? I have to get going to class now."
"After class then. I'll meet you behind the baseball field." She gave him a quick, sharp look. "Don't stand me up, Asapin."
"Okay," Hideaki said with a complacent shrug. His mind teemed with questions as he walked away, debating how much he could reveal to her. Would it be the right thing to betray Arima to the one he loved?
Instead of attending class, he went to the gym where the girls' volleyball team was practicing. He observed them in action, watching as Tsubaki moved quickly to hit the ball, displaying the strength and confidence that had become her trademark. She heckled the girls on the other side of the net, challenging them to give her better serves than that. Rika stood on the sidelines, drinking a bottle of water as she watched the game.
Megumi, Hideaki's former middle school classmate, was on the opposite side of the net from Tsubaki, her face flushed with exertion. She managed to stop Tsubaki's serve, but the ball sailed upward into the net amid groans and cheers. The coach said something, but Hideaki was caught up in watching Megumi sigh and straighten. The girls next to her patted her on the back and one of them said something that made her giggle and cover her mouth. After a painful, heart-breaking experience, she had found her strength and a place to belong outside the crowd. Relieved, Hideaki smiled and left the gym, heading back to the west end stairs.
He climbed up the long path of steps to the open air of the roof, where Arima waited, crouched beside the railing. His hands gripped the metal bars so tightly that his knuckles stood out like white pebbles against the shiny pain. The mask was gone now and Hideaki could see the pain stretching his face tight with turmoil.
"It's all coming apart," he said without looking at Hideaki. "It's what I deserve, anyway. Karma coming back to kill me."
Hideaki saw the thin bones of Arima's fingers, the sickly color of his skin and bit his tongue. Arima looked like he might be violently sick at any moment, drawn and wounded deep in his flesh. Fighting down the first wave of panic, Hideaki knelt beside his friend and kept his face impassive. The tile was hard and cold against his kneecaps. The frigid air made his skin tingle; he hadn't brought a jacket and the weather was hardly forgiving.
"Maybe it's time to let go," he offered quietly.
Arima hissed scornfully at this suggestion. "Too late for that. I've been lying to them for too long, pretending to be better… Well, now they'll all see the monster I really am."
"You're not a monster," Hideaki said uselessly. Arima's sudden breakdown shocked and frightened him. He put an arm over Arima's back, holding onto his shoulders. His fingers were starting to numb in the cold air and he rubbed them gently into the muscle of other boy's tense shoulder.
"Don't touch me," Arima said, his voice oddly muffled. "Go away already." His hands slid from the bars to grip his knees and he made no move to push Hideaki away, as he usually did. His body shuddered beneath the other's arm and he lowered his head against his knees to hide his face. "It doesn't matter anyway. She's going away to college…we're all going away."
There was no mistaking the tremor in his voice and Hideaki felt the answering surge of sadness in himself like a jagged flood. He wrapped his other arm around Arima's body, shifting position so that he could embrace the other boy from behind, resting his face against the back of Arima's neck. The thin body beneath his shivered restlessly despite the warmth Hideaki felt radiating from it. Words twisted uselessly in Hideaki's mouth, too weak and ineffective to emerge.
Nothing I can say will heal him, he realized. Nothing I do will ever save him in the end. He didn't want to believe it, wanted to stay by this boy forever as his safe shelter and only confidant, but Arima deserved more than this desperately suppressed longing. Hideaki clenched his burning eyes shut and breathed harshly into the rough fabric of Arima's jacket.
"If you really love someone, you let them go," he had told Arima that first summer, and the other boy had immediately assumed that he was suggesting a breakup with Yukino. Could anyone be so blind, oblivious to all the hints, the suggestive words, the lingering touches, the mindless obsession and sacrifice of dignity?
With his arms around Arima and his face buried in his friend's shaking back, Hideaki felt himself confronted with the razor-sharp edge of truth. No one could be that blind unless they wanted to be. Arima would never reciprocate his desire, would never treat him as more than the friend who was always there for some reason. Arima knew of Hideaki's feelings and he completely ignored them.
The air around them was so cold, he could hardly feel his body. All he could feel was Arima's firm presence against him. I… I hate you, he thought suddenly. You're a heartless, manipulative bastard. You suck me up like a black hole and spit me out when I'm no use to you. He gasped, inhaling the icy air. Acid burned behind his eyelids. His chest ached and expanded, filling with more pain than he had ever imagined it could hold.
Arima drew in another shuddering breath, his muscles slackening under Hideaki's embrace. A quick, chill wind picked up, sweeping through Hideaki's clothing, freezing him to the bone. Arima's body in his arms was a warm, solid weight anchoring him to the world even as the dark boy's mind crumbled. He shielded Arima from the wind without even thinking about it, as one cups a flower bud in shivering hands to protect it from the frost that has already covered it.
-
Yukino stood with her back to the chain link fence, a small steady figure against the expanse of metal rings. Her school uniform looked precise and neat from the smooth blazer to the slightly scuffed black shoes. Her legs were pressed together beneath her pleated skirt to preserve warmth.
"I thought you might not come," she said softly.
Hideaki mustered a smile. He sat leisurely on the long grass beside her feet, looking out toward the river. "So, what did you want to talk about, Yukinon?"
She turned and moved to block his line of sight. The wind tossed her short hair against her face but she looked into his eyes with piercing directness. "I think Soichiro may be lying to me," she said. "I'm not sure how long he's been doing it."
Tilting his head toward her face, he gave her an innocent look. "And why are you asking me about it? Isn't he the one you're dating?"
She didn't back down and continued to watch him, skirt shifting against her thighs in the breeze. "You know Arima better than anyone, maybe even better than me. I think you see through him. I think he might tell you things."
Hideaki's fingers twisted in the grass to the gritty, sandy soil beneath. The rough granules stuck under his fingernails. "If you're asking me about something like this don't you already know the answer?"
"Tell me the truth, Asaba" she said forcefully, and despite the harshness of the command, there was a break in her voice, a roughness that betrayed emotion.
He tilted his head back to look more directly into her eyes, challenging. "Okay. Yeah, that's the truth. He not telling you everything, not giving away how he really feels, hiding stuff from you." His mouth was strangely, surprisingly cruel. "But you already knew that, I'm sure."
All the same, the shock in her eyes surprised him. She stared at him, suddenly pained and betrayed, as if he had stabbed Arima in the back in front of her eyes.
"That's… that's horrible," she declared brokenly, accusation sharp. "I can't believe that he would… deceive me like that."
Unexpectedly, Hideaki felt his sympathy turn to anger. Arima had hidden himself for her sake, kept up the façade solely to be the kind of person he thought she would want.
"Horrible?" he repeated coolly. "You have no idea why he's been keeping things from you. You can't even comprehend what he's been through." The wind stung the back of his neck. "If you're going to get judgmental and turn into some self-pitying castoff, I guess I was completely wrong about you."
A lesser girl would have broken into tears or leapt to defend herself but Yukino only continued to watch him, her initial alarm settling back into grave contemplation. "Are you angry with me?" she asked. A strand of hair stuck to the corner of her mouth. Her hands were trembling slightly while the rest of her body was solid as a rock.
Hideaki looked down at his knees with a false smile. "Yeah, a little," he admitted.
Her face flushed then and she stepped closer so that he was staring down at his face, her shaking hands clenched into fists. "Why are you like this, Asaba?" she demanded, voice harsh with anguish. "I don't even know who you are any more. You and Arima both… you're like strangers all of a sudden!"
She left him then, running back towards the school on the verge of tears, but with a purpose in mind. Going to face Arima? Hideaki wondered. He lay back on the grass with a sigh. The confrontation would have had to come in time, he knew this now and he had resolved to stop shielding his friend. If Arima found out how he had spoken to Yukino, the dark-haired boy would doubtlessly react with extreme anger. Yukino existed as the sole object of his deep and painful obsession and he would do anything to protect her. Now it was up to Yukino to grasp the power and danger of this passion and help Arima climb out of the pit he had dug for himself.
"Save your Prince Charming, Yukinon," Hideaki said to no one, lying on the dry grass beside the chain-link fence behind the empty, dusty baseball field.
He covered his face with one arm, listening to an old soda can rattle against the fence, driven by the wind. That's me, he thought. Empty and discarded. He chuckled, then, at the mediocre poetry his own self-pity made.
-
Hideaki had missed a ridiculous amount of class time that day, but he managed to attend his final session. He found it difficult, though, to concentrate on the material being taught with the drama doubtlessly unfolding elsewhere in the school.
When the bell rang and he raced out of the room, he saw Tsubaki, Aya, and Rika waiting for him in the hall with solemn expressions. "We need to talk to you, Asaba," Aya said briskly. Tsubaki glared at him tightly and Rika looked down at her feet with reddened eyes.
"I've been doing a lot of that today," Hideaki quipped, resignation settling in.
They led him to an empty room and he sat at a desk, crossing his legs and putting on an attentive face.
"We need to know what's happening with Arima and Miyazawa," Tsubaki said firmly. He's gone missing this afternoon and she won't tell us anything about why she's so upset."
"And she didn't want to talk to you," Rika added, confusion and concern clear in her face. "She said that she doesn't recognize you anymore." Her lips trembled. "I just don't understand."
Hideaki watched them all silently, marveling at the degree his life had changed in such a short time. Just yesterday he had been eating and joking with these girls. The solid world he had built was collapsing around him at rapid speed.
"I understand," Tsubaki growled. "This loser hurt Yukinon somehow and now he's sitting here, cool as a cucumber, ignoring us completely."
"No," Rika pleaded. Her eyes begged Hideaki to deny it.
"What's going on?" Aya asked again, frustrated by his silence.
"It's between Arima and Miyazawa," Hideaki said evenly. "It's none of my business and it's none of yours. It's their relationship and their job to work out its problems."
Perhaps it was jealousy or an attachment to Arima that made him so defensive. Perhaps he really believed that only Arima and Yukino could fix the divide between them. Either way, he had effectively shut the other girls out.
Aya shook her head sadly. Tsubaki stared at him angrily, her scorn seeping into her voice. "She was right about you being a stranger. Yukinon is our friend and if you won't help her, we'll figure it out ourselves."
She marched out of the room and the other two followed her silently, turning their backs on the orange-haired boy at the desk.
-
It was a long Friday night for Hideaki. He stayed up late watching television after another call from Arima's aunt, asking about the whereabouts of her only child. The late shows seemed to blend into each other as the night wore on. He waited for the knock at the door, the ring of the telephone but Arima never showed. Finally, he turned off the screen and fell asleep on the sofa within reach of the door. Curled against the cushions, he felt hollow and afraid. Arima life was falling apart and Hideaki could barely keep the pieces of his own world together.
The ring of the doorbell woke him early in the morning. He sat up sleepily, rubbing at his gritty eyes with one hand. His right cheek felt rough and red with imprinted pattern of the sofa's fabric. One arm tingled numbly where he had lain on it and cut off the circulation.
Clumsily, he stumbled to the door, only pausing to run a hand through his messy hair before opening it. He had expected Arima, Yukino, or one of the gang armed with anger of apologies but the two small neighbor girls stood there, looking at him shyly.
"Have you seen our kitty?" asked the older one. She wore a little cranberry-red coat and a grayish knitted hat that was beginning to unravel. Her younger sister hid in her shadow, fingering the yellow rabbit on her jacket.
"Uh, no," Hideaki admitted and winced at the crestfallen expressions on their round faces. "But I'd be happy to help you look."
This declaration cheered them immensely. The older sister beamed at him while the younger squeaked happily and did a little jump of excitement. He grabbed his coat and led them around the apartment complex, questioning sleepy neighbors and searching empty alleys.
The day grew warmer, the sun shone brightly, and Hideaki gained the duty of carrying discarded coats and hats. After a lengthy search, they finally found Mika-Mika, the fat gray tabby, foraging in an overturned garbage can a few blocks away. Hideaki escorted the little troop back to their apartment before returning to his own, feeling lighter with the sun on his back and his key warm in his hand.
He had just turned the corner toward the metal stairs when he saw Arima standing there in the courtyard, looking for all the world like a lost, frightened child. The relief on his face when he saw Hideaki cut like a blade of light through Hideaki's heart.
"Hey," Hideaki said awkwardly. He should have felt worried and afraid in this kind of situation, but a surge of selfish elation overwhelmed him. He touched Arima's clammy face with one hand and fought back the triumph in his body. "Are you okay?"
Arima bent to press his face against Hideaki's shoulder, breathing deeply and Hideaki forgot all his anger from the day before. It didn't matter if Arima only used him. Arima needed to use him and that was what really meant something. In his time of desperation, he had come to Hideaki alone. The taller boy touched Arima's back cautiously, uncertain of how to respond to this sudden display of… affection? Arima's hair smelled of his usual plain shampoo and his body was solid against his friend's. Hideaki moved his hand up to Arima's neck and felt the sweat there, the fever of fear under the skin.
"I'm thirsty," Arima said faintly.
Quickly, Hideaki turned, grasping Arima's arm and leading him up the stairs and into the apartment. They sat on the floor of the living room as Arima drank a tall glass of water. Hideaki watched the movement of his throat as Arima swallowed, the way he closed his eyes, lashes falling against his pale skin. Hideaki thought of drawing him like that, capturing the simple beauty of a boy drinking water.
Arima brushed his fingers over his lips, set the glass down on the carpet, and began to speak in an even voice, eyes latched on Hideaki's, wide with a plea for understanding. He spoke at length of the things he remembered now: the arc of his mother's fast, hard hands and feet; the way her knuckles left round bruises on his face like dark petals; the curve of her full red lips as she ate or spoke; the liquid slide of her disgust; the vitriolic burn of her anger; the filth on the floor; the horror of looking into a mirror at a dark, dirty little monster; the emptiness in his body as he reached up, up for nothing, nothing at all.
As Arima spoke, he shaped these images with the movement of his mouth and faint flickers of emotion in his eyes, as he recounted horror after horror with the cool face of an angel. "They found me half-dead in the snow outside out apartment, starved, feverish, and dehydrated. I kept hoping she would come back. I don't know why."
"Why not?" Hideaki offered, feeling weak and sick from these sudden revelations. "She was all you had. Of course you loved her."
"No love now," Arima said bitterly. "Love is about needing someone and she was all I had but she never needed me. She would have been glad to get rid of me, I think."
Is that what love is about? Hideaki wondered, feeling a sharp, tightening circle under his ribs. Don't you need me, Arima? Or is it just the other way around?
"She's just using me," Arima said disgustedly. "She's ruining my life because hers is so fucked up." He raised his hands to cover his face in a sudden gesture of agony. His voice shook. "My parents know about it now. They know I've been keeping things from them." His fingers pressed deep into his skin. "It's all going to hell, Asaba. I don't know what to do. How can I keep this from her?"
Arima reached across the short distance between them and grasped Hideaki's shirt like a frightened child. His head dropped to rest on the space between Hideaki's neck and shoulder, finding a safe hollow there. Hideaki felt tears against the skin of his neck and time seemed to stop. The burning in Hideaki's body raged against his indecision, his conflicting desires and needs. He bit his tongue and clenched the useless hands the wanted only to smooth down the slope of Arima's back, to run fingers through dark hair. He would have only needed to shift a little, to support Arima's head with one hand and kiss those wet eyes, that wavering mouth, or he could have simply touched Arima soothingly, comforting his friend as he always had.
In the back of his mind, though, he knew it would all be in vain. You aren't the one, he told himself. You can't fix him. His tongue felt thick and worthless in his mouth. He forced himself to speak.
"There's something I need to tell you, Soichiro." Arima turned his head slightly. "Yukino asked me yesterday if you were lying to her… and I said yes."
Arima jerked back so quickly that Hideaki barely felt the movement before he was looking into Arima's panicked, tear-streaked face.
"You told her what?" His dark eyes blazed, full of terror and disbelief.
Hideaki steeled himself, determined not to give into the other boy. "I told her what you couldn't— the truth," he declared steadily.
Arima's fist struck the side of his face like a cobra lunging for the kill. Hideaki fell back from the blow and blinked rapidly, reaching up to the bruising skin of his cheek. He pulled himself up again to stare Arima in the face. "What? You want me to lie to her too?" he asked painfully. "You know she would have found out eventually because you're just too emotionally unstable to keep this up. Didn't I warn you? Your cheap house of pretending is falling apart."
A flash of rage in the other boy's eyes was all the warning he had. He didn't dodge the second blow. The impact of Arima's bony knuckles force his bottom lip against his teeth. The coppery taste of blood blossomed on his tongue. Arima stood without giving him a second glance and walked toward the door. Hideaki pushed himself up again and forced his mouth to speak, despite the sting of his cut lip.
"Hit me all you want," he hissed, "but it won't change anything. She knows. She's suspected all along, Soichiro, because she knows you, she watches you. That's what he means to be loved by someone." He coughed and felt a trickle of blood run out of his mouth.
Arima was at the door already. He paused with his hand on the knob. "As if you would know," he said derisively.
Hideaki felt his eyes burn with desperation and he blinked hard, wiping the blood from his lips. The familiar void had opened in his chest, but now it felt enormous, a black, gaping hole. Arima turned the knob of the door.
"Don't you fucking run away," Hideaki rasped, voice slurred. Arima stopped again, his back straight and stiff. Hideaki knew in his gut that there was nowhere else for the isolated boy to go but down. His fear for the desperation in Arima overwhelmed his own pain. If Arima left now, Hideaki might never see his friend again.
He swallowed a mouthful of blood and braced himself. "You're up against a wall, Soichiro. Be a man for once and face up to it. I may not know what it means to be loved, but you do. What about your mom and dad? What about Yukino?" What about me? "They haven't given up on you. You can't keep pushing them away or leave them behind."
Arima turned slowly and looked down at the floor. His hands were still clenched at his sides, but his face showed a raging battle of conflicting fear and guilt. Finally, he met Hideaki's eyes, wincing with sudden shame as he saw the blood. "I'm sorry, Asaba. I'll get something for that."
"It's okay," Hideaki replied, feeling awkward with relief. His vision blurred with a slight dizziness as he watched Arima go to the kitchen for a washcloth and ice. It took him a moment before he could stand without feeling too ill or disoriented. He rinsed the blood out of his mouth in the kitchen and held the ice against his face.
"You should call your parents," he told Arima. "They're really worried about you."
Arima picked up the phone and dialed a number. The skin of Hideaki's face grew numb quickly as he watched his friend speak, but there was nothing he could do for the searing pain in his chest except close it up and try to forget about it. He wondered how much longer he could keep this up, keep hiding and tearing inwardly. Someday it would go away. Someday he would get over this, like Megumi, and find his place of acceptance.